Looney Tunes Wiki:Citations

This is an official project page of Looney Tunes Wiki. This means that these are guidelines of our terms, which must be followed. Failure to follow these terms can result in anvil drops or account closures from this wiki and its affiliates.

Last revision on: 1/19/18

The Looney Tunes Wiki, and most of its affiliates (except the Fanon wikis and some of the wikis dedicated to an exclusive television show), are encyclopedia databases, and usually not publishers of original thought (exceptions are always present). We use material that is attributable to reliable published sources, usually not whether it is true. The Looney Tunes Wiki is not places to publish your opinions, experiences, or arguments, with the exceptions of the userpages, the Discord chat, blogs, and forums.

While almost everything on Looney Tunes Wiki must be attributable, not all material has to be attributed, such as character descriptions or material that can be watched (such as events in the cartoons themselves or ending titles). Editors should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, using {{Citation needed}}, with a | and then put the date, or it may be removed. The reason for the date at the time of a citation request is the date notifies the acme staff how long before something questionable may be removed without notice. Note: This only shows up on the source editor so it is recommended to use the source editor.

The burden of evidence lies with the editor wishing to add or retain the material. Should an article (except characters/video games with descriptions) not have any reliable sources, then the Looney Tunes Wiki should not have an article on it.

In addition to attribution, citations are needed when a questionable statement needs sources for verification. It is very important you add this onto questionable statements. It is recommended that you try and find a source proving the statement true first, but this is not required. Eventually, these statements may be removed if no source has been shown for a while.

Failure to add citations/sources to a quote or not crediting the original author while copying their content is also plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized use of three or more words in succession or an original idea without attribution (references, sources, citations, further reading, works cited, etc).

Building off of the definition of plagiarism, attribution is not only proving something is true with some citations, but also a form of respect to give sources/citations as credits for writing an article on here. Copying from Wikipedia, other Wikia wikis, and other wiki databases licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 licensewith proper attribution is not plagiarism as the license allows others to reuse the material, although the Looney Tunes Wiki prefers your own work.

Note that images and videos can be faked! Technology has made it easier for anyone with a computer and the appropriate software to make convincing images and videos. Anyone who knows about the "inspect element" command in web browsers can change the text on, say, CNN, to say anything they want, take a screenshot of it, and post it to the Internet. There are so many possible criteria to go over that the Acme Heads and Wizards are likely to go by "I know it when I see it."

What is the website trying to convey or explain? Is there proof like picture, video, news article, etc? Someone can make up a Space Jam upcoming sequel post on Facebook when it could really not be true. In that case, you should not cite it.

What kind of website is it? Is it a website to inform? To deliver information? Usually, articles that have a biased nature, sans personal blogs, are not reliable sources.

Who wrote the work? Can you search them up on that website or search them on databases? What have they been writing on the website or outside it? Does the source or writer have a history of providing reliable information?

If the creator of Cartoon Research is writing articles about cartoon research and the writers' work has been proven time and time again to be correct, then it is a reliable source. Skepticism should be applied to pieces by new writers in the field, and it is advised not to use pieces by writers who have a history of providing unreliable information.

In most cases, if you cannot search up the writer, or if the writer is a red flag (such as by the ToonZone staff), we don't know who wrote this, so it is then most likely an unreliable source. Of course, this isn't true for all cases.

The official social media page or website of a staff member working on a project is considered reliable.

Does the article have any citations, references, or works cited? Pictures and video shots from the cartoons themselves, if they aren't altered count as a reference.

In the cases of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, is the post just a screenshot purporting to be from an article? Is the article linked to? A screenshot of an article alone is not a reliable source as it can be altered.

Use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. The best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source. Be especially careful when sourcing content related to living people.

If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history. However, we do not require these sources be used. You may also include sources from books, journals, and quotes if they are properly cited. See our sources page for more information on scholarly, popular, primary, and secondary sources.

Editors may also use material from reliable non-academic sources, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications. Other reliable sources include:

University-level textbooks

Books published by respected publishing houses

Magazines (neutral point-of-view)

Journals

Mainstream newspapers (neutral point-of-view)

Editors may also use electronic media, subject to the same criteria.

Forums and blogs

Forums are where people come to collaborate on certain topics. Forums can considered being reliable sources, if they include:

Photos or videos (once again, keeping in mind that they can be faked)

Photos or video clips of an upcoming episode or upcoming event (once again, keeping in mind that they can be faked)

A person from the studio talking about upcoming episodes, progress, adding photos, etc (once again, please note that it has to be confirmed that the account is real; if it is, then it can be assumed that everything they post is real, though this isn't always the case)

Blogs are websites where people can talk about what they like, review a title, or give information to people. Blogs are considered reliable if they include:

Photos or videos (once again, keeping in mind that they can be faked)

Updated information, blogs that were last updated 20 years ago might not be a reliable source anymore (Though there can be exceptions to these).

Insider information, like experts in their fields. Search them up and also search up what they talk about. If it is not true (after you search) and it is meant to mislead people, then it isn't a reliable source.

Images and videos

Images and videos may be consider citations if they are:

a Warner Bros. picture or video

not heavily edited (custom borders, custom drawings, memes)

Why you should cite your sources

To credit a source for providing useful information and to avoid claims of plagiarism.

To show that the edits you make are, preferably, not original research. (there are exceptions to this) (stuff you find in a video doesn't count as original research)

To ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any reader or editor.

To help users find additional reliable information on the topic.

To improve the overall credibility and authoritative character of the Looney Tunes Wiki.

To reduce the likelihood of editorial disputes, or to resolve any that arise.

While we do not ask for an academic citation, we ask that you do not use Wikipedia, other wiki databases, or other Wikia projects as a citation for an article. If you need to list their names, add a ==External Links== section and list them there.

Because the Looney Tunes Wiki and other wikis are all based off of other online and non-online (book, scholarly journal) sources, we ask that if visitors are attributing something they found on our wiki, that they do not credit us, but rather credit the sources we attributed.

Failure to use citations for questionable statements will usually result in a warning for the first few times. If this persists, it can result in an anvil drop.

Requesting a source

After a statement, type {{Citation needed|date={{{1}}}}}. We prefer dates to see when the template was last updated. This way, we can remove information that seems to be unsourced for a long time.